<div class="im">Hi
friends, how are you ?<br><br>I'm Ivan Paulos Tomé - A.K.A.
Greylica.<br>After 2 years maintaining Brazilian Wiki project ( near
complete ), <br></div>I have learned lot's of lessons...<div class="im"><br>OK, I tried to avoid
a long mail, but some issues are inevitable, <br></div>I cannot avoid bringing them up, so let's get to it.
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" lang="en-US"><br>1-)
Documentation:</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" lang="en-US">All of us,
no matter our native language/country, need access to (good)
documentation for Blender. Our Blender Wiki is intended to bring the best information possible to users, but it's not guided
towards "newbies". That is the cause we have been receiving complaints
about the Wiki nowadays, just as in 2009, and 2008, and 2007... The same thing is
always happening.</p><div class="im">
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" lang="en-US">Why this
is happening almost every year ?</p>
</div><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" lang="en-US">I can tell you what's
happening, because it's not us exclusively. No, it's not Blender
Foundation, and it's not documenters/users
fault. The same situation is happening to the entire Free/Open Software
ecosystem, same for Gimp, Inkscape, same for OO, same for any Free
Software !</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" lang="en-US">Users
complain because they desperately seek for a magic solution. A
quick-and-easy piece of information that will solve their problems. A
miracle, to be exact. But there is
no miracle here, no one will make a film in one day... <br></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" lang="en-US">((It's the
truth, even for me, 4 years using Blender, I will have to work
everyday for a production, If I want to...))</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" lang="en-US">Sometimes
people get ''brilliant'' ideas, and try to solve all of our
problems with proposals that implement a non traditional way of
learning Blender. Is it right to do so? Yes !!!</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" lang="en-US">But in
every try, they discover that the real world is not so kind, users
aren't so easy, and things sometimes don't work as expected. Until
now, no one found an useful and complete solution for all of our
(mostly related to "newbies") problems, but please, keep trying !</p><div class="im">
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" lang="en-US">A group of
Brazilians for example, are starting to use BGE to teach Blender, why
not ?</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" lang="en-US">The
advantage over videos: You can translate and fix things...</p>
</div><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" lang="en-US">Let's talk about the REAL problem, including Andrew Price's presentation:</p><div class="im">
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" lang="en-US">What
Andrew Price said in his presentation, is what we already knew years
ago.
</p>
</div><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" lang="en-US">But how do we
solve it ?</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" lang="en-US">Before
any ideas pop in this area, we need to address the "newbies" issue: often
times, me, Luca, Jester, Terry, and some other ACTIVE documenters
discussed them. Even Ton Rosendaal entered the discussions/conversations with us.
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" lang="en-US">Keep in mind that the ''User manual'' is not a ''Newbie manual'', and that was
written in a way that tries to reach a hand over both worlds,
experienced and non-experienced. But the "newbies" are always
complaining:</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" lang="en-US">''Huh, I
read the entire Wiki page only to find out that the Faces that I was
using had it's normals pointed in the wrong direction. Why wasn't
it blinking in red, white and black in front of the Blender.org website ?''
(and offer a cup of tea too ?)</p><div class="im">
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" lang="en-US">Do we have
to express this problem in a more stressful situation ? No. We don't.</p>
</div><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" lang="en-US">(We
already know the solution, but people are always complaining. Why aren't
they documenting using the Blender Wiki Writers manual or
guidelines? Why they insist in complaints whereas we need task force
to guide?)
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" lang="en-US">Often times we receive certain e-mails and complaints
in the list bf-docboard, offering the ''ultimate super ultra
solution''. None of them offered real help, most of them never wrote
a technical article, and most of them never wrote a single useful
tutorial.
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" lang="en-US">Then
again, they are offering video tutorials to solve our problem. Seriously ?</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" lang="en-US">We are
giving our blood to the cause: we lack sleep sometimes; we sometimes stick 6
hours in front of a computer writing articles... and then, because we
aren't delivering the expected miracle for newbies (for now), suddenly we're useless, archaic museum articles...</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" lang="en-US">So much
fingers pointed at us, and mere 5~14 trully concerned about the
quality of the information given to the readers. In fact, we are
concerned about the Blender User Experience quality, and our ''User
Manual'' is the result of hard study, consultancy of Blender Coders,
conversations, approval, only to now be considered useless?
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" lang="en-US">Everything
now is Video, video is modern! What then, shall we have to set fire on
books ?</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" lang="en-US">No, videos
are complimentary, what we need is to have the best of both worlds,
and we have plans to write exclusively for newbies. It will solve
their problems. We WILL give Blender to every human in the earth. I
have no problem adding ''complimentary'' videos...</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" lang="en-US"><br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" lang="en-US">The
solution to the most urgent problem, (to finally solve the "newbies" issue) starts here:</p><div class="im">
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" lang="en-US">Can you
help ?
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" lang="en-US">IRC
#blenderwiki</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" lang="en-US">It's open
24 hours a day, 7 days a week...
</p>
</div><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" lang="en-US">I swear
that I will do the best I can to help, as the same was done for me 2
years ago.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" lang="en-US"><br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" lang="en-US">2-)
Documenters:</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" lang="en-US">Yes, I
have ''chewed'' bad documenters, I didn't give them a third/fourth
chance to use ''Google Translate'' and upload pages, I corrected
errors, rolled back ''spam'' pages. All I am saying to everyone is that the
coders do not deserve bad documenters, they are working hard
to deliver Blender without a hiccup, why can't we work in the same
spirit ?
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" lang="en-US">I am
saying that I'm a Blender maintainer, I take care of this
part of Blender, I'm responsible for the manuals, Brazilian Manual
and Base (English).
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" lang="en-US">Expect me
and my team ( it's being formed ) to be maintainers. Please, do not
treat us as ''only writers'' or ''only
translators'' → forget it, we are maintainers, we will be here
2014, 2020, 2030... Me, Samir, and Leandro will be here for 2.6x.
Brazilians are coming, good documenters, good coders, good artists !
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" lang="en-US">We need
maintainers for the documentation, it means people that are
responsible for parts of the manual, we don't need ''documenters''
anymore (often times a Blender writer...), we need maintainers, I'm
forming documenters that will be good maintainers, they deserve
the same respect they are showing the entire Blender ecosystem.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" lang="en-US"><br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" lang="en-US">3-)
Translations :</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" lang="en-US">English
only ?
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" lang="en-US">Someone
told that Mont29 has spoken ideas to kill documentation
in any other language, right ?</p><div class="im">
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" lang="en-US">It's very
strange, because ''FR'', the French documentation (Sebastien is
French) is complete...</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" lang="en-US">Brazilian
(Portuguese) documentation is complete... (13 pages left )</p>
</div><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" lang="en-US">Chinese
documentation is ongoing (have you seen the logs ? )...</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" lang="en-US">Kill their
documentation, and you will have almost no documenters for English either.
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" lang="en-US">Let them
working, and we'll have a task force to guide when needed. ;-)</p><div class="im">
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" lang="en-US">The idea
behind translations, is that the involved persons are also capable of
editing and
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" lang="en-US">writing
pages. Look at my situation right now:</p>
</div><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" lang="en-US">I didn't
say no to help with Base (English) documentation for 2.6x, and I
wrote/translate 99% of the Brazilian wiki entirely alone, 2 years of hard work...</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" lang="en-US">Documenters
converted to maintainers of their languages, will be responsible
for FR, IT, PT, AR, RU, etc, etc. Good idea, don't you think ?</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" lang="en-US">On top of that, Brazilian usage of Blender after having a manual in portuguese is rising
everyday. It's the first pillar for our future support
infrastructure. We are doing our best to encourage
them to use Blender, wich results in a Blender "ecosystem" growth. Personally, I don't want this
process to stop.
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" lang="en-US"><br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" lang="en-US">I will do my best to see Blender everywhere on earth, why
not?</p><div class="im">
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" lang="en-US"><br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" lang="en-US">Is there
any specific reason (personal or not) to stop it here or in other
countries ?</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" lang="en-US">I won't
leave translations, even for complimentary videos, do you know how
many countries do speak Portuguese ?</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" lang="en-US">There are
8 countries, and 3 territories...</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" lang="en-US"><br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" lang="en-US">Narayan
said:</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" lang="en-US">We can't
plan with 3 people...</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" lang="en-US">My answer:
</p>
<ul><li><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" lang="en-US">Can
you plan alone and make it happen ? Do it !</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" lang="en-US">For now,
those three are making it happen right now...</p>
</li></ul>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" lang="en-US"><br>4:)
Sandbox :</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" lang="en-US"><br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" lang="en-US">Censorship
? CENSORSHIP ?</p>
</div><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" lang="en-US">Someone's
got a drug that humans aren't aware of...</p><div class="im">
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" lang="en-US">Archaic
rules ?</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" lang="en-US">OK, My
sandbox is empty. Do you know why ?</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" lang="en-US">That's
because I didn't end the translation of BR Wiki, and because of this,
I didn't take my new responsibility to write and maintain – The
''Constraints'' Section task of 2.4x was given to me to renewal. I
will use my Sandbox, and I will use it a lot !</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" lang="en-US">Samir; our
new Brazilian documenter, is using his Sandbox, ask him how many tips
I gave him before placing the page in the appropriate local.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" lang="en-US">There's no
censorship here, when submitting a page for approval, I felt even
more secure about my Job, Blender (ecosystem) deserves the best I can
do ! The judgement and approval of others does not cause any
restriction to my liberty.
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" lang="en-US"><br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" lang="en-US"> 5:) Video
Standards:</p>
</div><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" lang="en-US">OK, here I
agree, the only thing good in all of this, it's the submission of
videos using certain standards to boot. Even then, it's a
complimentary thing, and we can add it into an specific section of
every page. I agree to put videos in wiki. Can we define standards
for it? ((Maybe a revision of the Style Guide is due?))<br></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" lang="en-US">We
will only need the screenplay, and captions in txt, pdf, whatever so we can translate them!
</p><div class="im">
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" lang="en-US">A
question:</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" lang="en-US">Narayan
said:</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" lang="en-US">- Videos
will dominate life in the future...</p>
</div><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" lang="en-US">Well, stupid
videos are dominating everything right now...</p><div class="im">
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" lang="en-US">Roger
said:</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" lang="en-US">Videos are
a simply an encapsulated manner of explaining things, and good videos
sometimes are hard to find...</p>
</div><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" lang="en-US">Will the people that
are insisting that videos will save Blender's documentation issues,
please be completely responsible for their quality and join
#blenderwiki channel?</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" lang="en-US">It's very
easy to submit ideas. To be responsible for them, develop and maintain,
now that's another story...
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" lang="en-US">(Ops, same
issue again, we need more maintainers...)</p><div class="im">
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" lang="en-US"><br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" lang="en-US">6:) TOC
changes.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" lang="en-US">I saw
strong efforts to make it happen, I don't know the state of the thing
right now, but I have plenty of confidence in Luca, Jester and the
rest of the Team.
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" lang="en-US">Once
again: Ideas >working sample< Implementation.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" lang="en-US"><br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" lang="en-US">7:)
Editing anything at any time, with any IP address.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" lang="en-US"><br>
</p>
</div><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" lang="en-US">The wiki
is a big book, I have to read the BR logs everyday to see if any
wrong changes occurred, and the Doc:BR and Doc: wiki is simply...
Giant !!!</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" lang="en-US">Wrong
changes take place almost everyday. I've found lot's of ''Hello
word !'' in Brazilian Pages as well. In the beginning, it was hard to
explain for Brazilian newcomers of Wiki (sometimes I'm recruiting people
to train, in order to be become mantainers), that they need their hard
work constantly looked after. Some of them say that this is a
very insecure way to construct a big work, and leave as it is
believing it's ok. It's hard for me sometimes too, but I will
continue observing it everyday. Any act of vandalism will be
reported/rolled back. But I confess, I'd prefer to see only
registered users editing wiki. It's better to know the e-mail of the
registered users, and try to orient them as well ( I won't admit
vandalism of any kind ). The information in our Blender Wiki is an image
of our Blender efforts. The software is serious/organized (I believe
in Blender). Free software doesn't mean disorganized
software/infrastructure/ecosystem, and we are already far better than
this.
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" lang="en-US"> I know
that this open situation is an incentive for users to enrich the texts
inside wiki, but in fact only a handfull of serious Blender users, maintainers and
coders are using their freedom to do it right. And they are always
registering themselves in wiki prior to editing, it's a proof of
their respect.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" lang="en-US">We HAVE to delete users like 111111111111111111111.1, 111111.2, etc...
They aren't serious.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" lang="en-US"><br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" lang="en-US">8:) Meetings! - First Sunday of every Month:</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" lang="en-US">Let's do
it !</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" lang="en-US">Even if
you can find me each and every day in the IRC wiki channel
(#blenderwiki), I won't miss it. Let Luca (mindrones), or Nathan
Letwory (Jesterking) tell us what's best for them, (best moment of
the day, issues, etc), and I will be there.
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" lang="en-US">
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" lang="en-US">-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" lang="en-US">Thank you
all for reading, I appologise for the long mail again, thank you all for
the freedom to manifest my opinion.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" lang="en-US"><br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" lang="en-US">Now I'm
getting back to the work, there are 2 new maintainers to train, 13
pages to end BR wiki, and in 8 feb 2011, I'm all for 2.6x series,
body and soul !</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" lang="en-US"><br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" lang="en-US">Cheers !</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" lang="en-US">Greylica –
My Brain is Grey like yours !</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" lang="en-US">Ivan
Paulos Tomé,
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" lang="en-US">BR Wiki
Maintainer.</p>
<br><font color="#888888"></font>-- <br>Drogas são coisas que não se pode nem se deve compartilhar.<br>Que tal compartilhar Linux ?<br>